A Fist in the Mouth
by Icicle Raindream
Summary: Sometimes, this is the only way to deal with things...


A Fist in the Mouth

By: Icicle Raindream

Disclaimer: I don't own any Ronin Warrior characters, and even if I did I don't think I would have this story anywhere in the plotline of the show…this is just something I pulled out of the air.

(Ever wanted to see Rowen and Sage fight?? Here ya go, enjoy!! Drop me a line!)

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Sage dug his elbow into my side. "Why are you practically sitting on me?" he demanded, shifting his icy violet stare on me.

I blew my forelock out of my eyes and huffed, "You wish." I tried to inch my chair over to the right a little, away from him, but then stopped. Sage had plenty of room to move around as he ate.

"Cute, Rowen," he snapped, turning back to his plate.

"You started it," I mumbled, taking a sip of water from my glass. "Why would I want to sit next to you anyway?"

Sage looked back at me, glaring. "Fine. Maybe I'll leave." He got up.

"Ever the dutiful warrior, huh, Sage?" I asked sarcastically. "Run away. Go ahead."

He looked down at me, one hand tapping his fingers against his pant leg. "You can be so irritating sometimes," he said, jaw clenched. "I'd rather try to figure out the mystery of the universe than talk with you."

I looked right back up at him, stone faced. "Yeah? Well, I'd rather stick this fork in my eye than talk with you sometimes." I held my fork up in the line of his vision.

I noticed that across the table Kento was trying to hold in his laughter. Cye was watching us with worried eyes, as was Mia, but Ryo was just kind of taking everything in, content with us verbally duking it out right here.

"Then why don't you do that," Sage said, turning on his heel.

"It would be too easy a release," I shot at him. "I'd rather be able to see you being miserable for the rest of your life."

He stopped and looked over one shoulder at me. "I will be as long as you're here."

"Your problem, not mine." I shrugged at him, smirking.

I could see steam coming from his ears as he stalked away, arms folded across his chest. His footsteps pounded lightly on the stairs as he retreated in defeat.

"Rowen, three points…Sage, ZIP!" Kento burst out, letting his laughter fly.

I stabbed my fork harshly into a vegetable spear. "He is the most self-righteous, conceited…" I lifted the fork to my mouth, then dropped it when I realized I wasn't hungry anymore. "He stole my appetite!" I said, disappointed.

Ryo shook his head at me. "What's with you two lately?" he asked. "You've been at each other's throats for over a week now."

"I don't know," I told him, shrugging. "All of a sudden he can't handle my company anymore. He goes around picking up all my books and putting them on my desk. He knows I hate my books on my desk!"

Cye stifled a giggle. "Where else are they going to go?" he asked, his hand over his mouth, hiding his smile.

I sighed, mildly frustrated. "There's this thing called a bookshelf, you know? Book…_shelf_…" I pushed my chair back and stood up. "Well, since I'm not hungry anymore, I might as well leave. You know," I said to the members of the dinner table, "I might get too close to you and ruin your little privacy bubble, too." _Or should I say BIG privacy bubble?_

"Rowen, you're not going after Sage, are you?" Mia asked, pushing her hair behind her ears. "He's probably still a little angry."

"And that's supposed to keep me out of my own room?" I told her. "I don't think so. Just because he's in there doesn't mean I can't be." I turned and left the kitchen, everyone's eyes trailing after me.

I made it up the steps and to the room. I opened the door quietly and stepped in. It was dark, the only illumination coming from the many candles Sage had placed and lit around the room. He was sitting meditation-style in the middle of the floor, eyes closed. He didn't move as I walked in and flopped on my bed.

I grabbed a book that was resting on my desk (thank you very much, Sage) and opened it, leaning back against my pillow. I readjusted the fat candle that was burning next to me so I could see the print on the paper, and began to read.

It was peacefully silent for a while. Then,

"Rowen," Sage said in an agitated tone.

I lowered my book. "What?" I asked with no patience.

"Can't you at least let me meditate?"

I glanced down at myself, then back to his form on the floor, which was facing away from me. "Does it look like I'm trying to stop you?" I asked, angering.

"You're driving me crazy," Sage said lowly. He sounded sincere.

"And just how am I doing that?" I demanded, laying my book on my chest.

"You're breathing."

My eyes went buggy. "Excuse me if I require oxygen to live!" I cried. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that you are breathing, too."

"Yes, but…you're breathing very loudly…I can't tune into anything but your breath."

I swung my legs off the bed, putting my book next to me. "Then I guess you're not very good at meditating, huh?"

Sage dropped his position and turned his head over his shoulder, glaring at me through the candlelight. "Why don't you just go away?"

"Why don't we just settle this?" I shouted back. "You're driving me as nuts as I'm driving you! It's ridiculous!"

Sage stood up and faced me fully. "No, it's ridiculous to have a best friend who keeps moving in on your privacy."

"You wanna talk about privacy?" I said. "How about you moving my books all the time?"

"That's not an invasion of privacy," he said, brushing me off. "That's necessity. If I didn't do that, we'd end up killing ourselves and falling all over the place."

"That might not be so bad on your part," I grumbled.

Sage walked over to me, his face scrunched a little with anger. "You want to settle this?" he yelled. "Then let's have at it!" He went to the door and flicked on the light switch, extinguishing every candle he could as he went.

I got to my feet and blew out the chunky candle next to me, then prepared to face Sage. It was very odd—our behavior. One could say that Sage and I were the two quietest people in the household; even Cye talked a bit more than we did. But we had been driving each other up the wall for a while now, with no real reason other than the fact that we both recently got nit-picky and defensive with everything. I had no explanation for my behavior, and I couldn't figure out Sage's either. But we definitely never acted like this before, especially not to each other. But we both needed this. We needed to let it all out, and that's what we intended to do.

Sage came at me and swung, burying his fist in my cheek and forcing me back a step. I retaliated and brought my hand up, taking a fistful of his hair and yanking. He cried out in terror and grabbed my elbow, twisting. I yelped and let go, but not after my other hand connected with his face. He tossed me on the bed, and I brought my foot up and kicked his stomach. It impacted, but also got stuck on his button-down shirt, which was thrown over his white tank top. He stepped back to get away from me and managed to drag me off the bed with him. My back slammed into the thinly carpeted rug, and I groaned in pain. Sage tried to get down to me, but I held him off with my leg as best I could, bringing the other one up to hold him so I could free first one. Once I did that, I leapt to my feet and shoved him. He almost lost his footing and swirled around, back to me. I jumped onto him, arms around his neck. I wasn't trying to choke him, just bring him down onto the floor in a tackled heap. It didn't work, though. Sage brought his arms up over his head and grabbed at my sweatshirt, lifting the hood. He pulled it over my eyes and closed it tight around my face. I had to let go and free myself of my thick cotton prison so I could breathe again. As I did that, he must've turned around, because as soon as I could see again his fist was in my mouth. I punched him back, square in the eye, twice. Then I sprung onto him and brought us down together on the floor. I pinned his back to the carpet, sitting on his stomach. His hand was gripping my left wrist so tightly it was cutting off circulation, and my other hand had somehow gotten mixed up in his hair again. His left hand was clutching at it, trying to untangle his hair from my fingers. He did that and took me by surprise, suddenly moving, rolling us over. Now he sat on my stomach, our roles reversed. My hands were grabbing his, trying to prevent him from punching me at such a close distance. Unfortunately, Sage was a bit faster than I and he let go of one of my hands long enough to grab at my face, tearing down my cheek with his short, yet long enough to inflict damage nails. I shouted at the slicing pain and abrupt blood, bringing my freed hand up. I jabbed him in the side, right on the bottom of the rib cage, with all my might. He cried out and jumped away, allowing me to catch my breath. 

I lay on the floor, holding my cheek and panting wildly, heart pounding. I wasn't sure if I had enough energy to get up and continue our fight. I glanced up at Sage.

He was standing a few feet away, wiping at his lower lip, holding his side. His face was red with exertion and fatigue, and he was panting, too. I think I saw a trickle of blood coming from his eye where I had landed a few hits earlier.

We just stared at each other, breathing the only sound in the room.

Until the door crashed open and scared the crap out of us.

"What are you two lunatics doing up here?" Ryo raged, standing in the doorway with Kento, Cye, and Mia.

"Settling things," I choked out.

"Must've been one hell of a problem you guys had with each other," Ryo said. "You're both bleeding." He paused, letting his words sink in. "Was it worth it?"

I looked at Sage. He looked back at me.

Kento circled us like a vulture, switching his vision from the floor to standing level numerous times. He stopped pacing and faced Sage. "Man, let's see…" Sage merely looked at him as Kento studied his face, thinking. "Hmm…Rowen…three points for the face, I say…" He looked at Sage's hand holding his side. "And five for the rib cage!" He grinned down at me, taking in my injuries. "Although it looks like Sage's attack on your face was a little more vicious…Sorry, man, gonna have to give him at least eight for the scratch marks…"

Mia stepped into the room and pulled at Kento. "Let them be," she said, glancing warily at us. "They need to calm down." She dragged Ryo and Kento out the door behind her, then closed it softly.

I turned my face from Sage's and rested a hand on my stomach, still gasping a bit for air, trying to slow my heart rate. Sage was like a statue where he stood, unmoved, breathing heavily.

We stayed like that for quite a while. Then I suddenly turned to him and said, "Well?"

His voice was incredibly calm. "Well what?"

I had the urge to laugh at this whole stupid ordeal. "Was it worth it?"

Sage contemplated for a second. "Are you satisfied?" he asked. I could tell there was laughter behind his words.

"No," I said simply. I looked around me on the floor, searching. I found what I knew was going to be there and lifted my arm. I hurled the object at Sage and it smacked him in the side of his head.

He just stood, still not moving, almost shocked. "What did you just throw at me?"

"A paperbacked novel." I shrugged my shoulders. "Now I'm satisfied."

"Wha…" Sage was at a loss for words, but it didn't matter anyway because they were consumed by his growing laughter. It was quiet at first, but then started to build, forcing itself out of him, rising from the depths of his being. He was really laughing his head off.

I began to laugh with him, as hard as I could, tears streaming down my face. This whole thing was so dumb it was funny, and it had just struck us now that we were in pain and bleeding. I was actually surprised he could laugh that hard with his hurt rib cage. I guess he ignored the pain.

The door opened again, and Ryo stood, observing us. "You guys are totally weird," he said, shaking his head. "I wonder if this is how it'll be every time." He closed the door and left us.

Sage grabbed my hand and hauled me up from the floor, still laughing with me. We left the room and went into the bathroom together, our anger at each other forgotten. I got washcloths and band-aids and ointment, and we stayed in there for a half hour, howling over the situation we'd put ourselves in, and the moronic damage we had done to each other. Kento, Cye, Ryo, and Mia were afraid of us for the rest of the night.

And that was it between Sage and me. Our problem, whatever it was, had been solved. Of course, it took us beating the snot out of each other, but…nobody's perfect.

I moved my chair at the kitchen table further against the wall, and Sage helped organize my bookshelf, removing all reading articles from my desk. Then we lit candles, I read, and he meditated.

But still somewhat in pain. "^-^"


End file.
